I was showing my Electribe ES-1 to a freind recently. This friend plays keyboards and is very familiar with the concept of sampling because that's the kind of instrumetns he plays (Roland Fantom, Nord Electro etc.).

I told him that the Electribe holds samples and that I had sampled a few drum machine and other sounds, which I played for him.

Cumulus wrote:I was showing my Electribe ES-1 to a freind recently. This friend plays keyboards and is very familiar with the concept of sampling because that's the kind of instrumetns he plays (Roland Fantom, Nord Electro etc.).

I told him that the Electribe holds samples and that I had sampled a few drum machine and other sounds, which I played for him.

My own statement(s) in the early 80's when I first heard Kraftwerk and Depeche Modes 'Just can't get enough':

"Synth music aren't real music. Using synthesizers are like cheatin' or playing a vinylplayer. It's stupid and talentless blip-blop noise. Musician-wannabes."
Well, I have hopefully aged wisely since then, as I'm a proud owner of several vintage samplers and synthesizers from the 80's. Reality came back and bite me in my buttocks.

Escobar wrote:My own statement(s) in the early 80's when I first heard Kraftwerk and Depeche Modes 'Just can't get enough':

"Synth music aren't real music. Using synthesizers are like cheatin' or playing a vinylplayer. It's stupid and talentless blip-blop noise. Musician-wannabes."
Well, I have hopefully aged wisely since then, as I'm a proud owner of several vintage samplers and synthesizers from the 80's. Reality came back and bite me in my buttocks.

If you don't mind me asking, how did you form that perception or think that way (at that time)? Was it because you didn't like the music from those particular bands?

Escobar wrote:My own statement(s) in the early 80's when I first heard Kraftwerk and Depeche Modes 'Just can't get enough':

"Synth music aren't real music. Using synthesizers are like cheatin' or playing a vinylplayer. It's stupid and talentless blip-blop noise. Musician-wannabes."
Well, I have hopefully aged wisely since then, as I'm a proud owner of several vintage samplers and synthesizers from the 80's. Reality came back and bite me in my buttocks.

If you don't mind me asking, how did you form that perception or think that way (at that time)? Was it because you didn't like the music from those particular bands?

That perception was held by many from the start. The fact that the Moog and Buchla both featured control voltage, where "the synth was doing something for you," didn't help. Sequencers were worse. Because no one was doing these things, it was assumed that the synthesizer was doing the work.
Also, early synthesizers were largely believed to be a sort of computer... once again bolstering the notion that the synth was doing the work.
On top of this, there was the perception that "synthesizer" was in some was related to the term "synthetic," which was mistakenly interpreted as "fake" or "artificial." All of a sudden, synths were making "fake" sounds.
On top of this, the stupid marketing notion that synthesizers could "fake" every sound ever heard was promoted by all synth companies.
It didn't help that whereas playing one note on any other instrument was horribly boring, yet playing one note on a synth could basically be a whole song.
Then a lot of extremely simplistic pop music with synthesizers was released, where all of the synths were poorly mimicking various instruments over an extremely anaemic drum machine. With a lot of New Wavish people standing around looking bored holding down one note or plunking out simplistic parts with a single finger, it made it look like no one was really DOING anything.
These are the things that led people to think that synth players were fakers; talentless blip-blop noisemakers.

These days, it's way better... thank God the synth market isn't filled with simplistic synth music performed on consumer-grade instruments made to do everything for you at the press of a key. It's a relief we don't have tons of software which remove the need for you to know keys or play in time or know how to program a synth or play it with your hands. Because that would be a nightmare... actually ENCOURAGING people to believe that we're not responsible for the music we make.

‎"I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -Charles Babbage
"Unity and Mediocrity are forever in bed together." -Zane W. http://www.youtube.com/automaticgainsay

Automatic Gainsay wrote:
These days, it's way better... thank God the synth market isn't filled with simplistic synth music performed on consumer-grade instruments made to do everything for you at the press of a key. It's a relief we don't have tons of software which remove the need for you to know keys or play in time or know how to program a synth or play it with your hands. Because that would be a nightmare... actually ENCOURAGING people to believe that we're not responsible for the music we make.

*Automatic Gainsay, you ignorant slut. Because of your lascivious goal of sleeping with anyone even remotely connected with a record label in hopes of you attaining a recording contract you've obviously neglected to take into account all of the paraquat related deaths which resulted from the confusion between so-called synthetic music and genuine works of auditory art.

The hordes of marijuana smoking acid heads that you and your ilk cater to musically can easily be mislead because of their "Alice in Wonderland" state of mind, thereby causing them to imbibe in substances containing the deadly government approved herbicide which can, and in most cases will, result in a horrific and painful death.

Sure, go ahead and joke all you want, but the sad fact is that the youth of today which depend greatly on mind-altering "pot" (as the kids of today refer to it) are in danger of being mislead because of flippant attitudes such as yours and the other musicians that they listen to.

Rest assured, I'm not a prude, and I do look forward to the next release of Lawrence Welk's greatest hits on CD, but joking about whether or not synthesizer music is "fake" or "real" just sticks in my craw, mister.

The next time you hear of a paraquat related death just remember that it may have been you yourself that drove that poor individual to make the wrong choice because of your careless comments.

*Sorry AG. Pointless 70's SNL parody brought on by one too many beerbongs.

braincandy wrote:If you don't mind me asking, how did you form that perception or think that way (at that time)? Was it because you didn't like the music from those particular bands?

I guess I've always been a little bit conservative when it comes to music taste. At that time I was more into music from the 60's like Beatles, Rolling Stones, the 'California sound' etc. So I guess that made me think that synthesizer created music were simple and cheating. "Programming a sequencer, anyone can do that!" But a year later I had totally changed my mind. I actually have three copies of Depeche Modes vinyl album 'Black Celebration', the last one bought a year ago which is digitaly remastered, and the CD version.
At that time (early 80's) I was visiting an uncle of mine who had bought an album with the duo 'La Bionda' and I listen to a song that caught me right away - 'I wanna be your lover'.

Simple song with lot of 'blip-blop' and 'noise' but genious!

Automatic Gainsay wrote:These days, it's way better... thank God the synth market isn't filled with simplistic synth music performed on consumer-grade instruments made to do everything for you at the press of a key. It's a relief we don't have tons of software which remove the need for you to know keys or play in time or know how to program a synth or play it with your hands. Because that would be a nightmare... actually ENCOURAGING people to believe that we're not responsible for the music we make.

My uncle - who has been a music enthusiast all his life - had a CS80 in his home in the 90s, but when I told him a couple of years ago after having gotten a Voyager for myself, he seemed to be genuinely surprised when I told him that most synths were monophonic in the 70s ("oh there were that kind too?"). It's always still surprising coming from the mouths of people who have been really into music all their lives and having owned several keyboard instruments themselves. I haven't tried explaining "paraphonic" to any mere mortal, though.

Of the countless possibilities offered by synthesis:

"With a synthesizer it is possible to create any imaginable sound if you just know how." (me, at 13)

In the early 90s, when I took home some old late-70s / early-80s "synthesizers for beginners" -type of books from the library, I was rather confused whilst reading those and fiddling a contemporary ROMpler. Couple of the parameters mentioned on those books seemed to be the same, but in the overall none of it seemed to make any sense. I really just wanted to learn how to synthesize "any imaginable sound" (I would have been happy to get the opening notes from "Beat it"). Mind you, at the same age I also wanted to own a "mixing desk" so that I could "do my own remixes".

Me: "But honey, this one's totally different than the others. They may all look like dark grey boxes with sliders, but this one's DCO based, this one's VCOs, this one's divide-down, this one has osc sync and this one doesn't, and..."

My Wife: "OK. I'm going shopping then. The Coach purses this season have slightly different top-stitching, and the lining is a different color."